Xbox fights back, PlayStation studiously ignores it

That was the week that was

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We're not a naturally suspicious lot here at TechRadar towers, but when WiG's normal writer does this one day, and then is so ill he simply cannot drag himself out of his bed the next, we're perfectly okay with blaming Google Glass. ARG indeed.

But, while he's desperately searching for a couple of health packs to get back in the game, we're grumpily climbing down from our sniper's nest and readying a jar of jarate and a machete so we can cut to the chase and bring you the pick of this week's gaming news.

Phoning it in

Apparently kids today are quite into these smartphone things - although we're not entirely sure where the analogue joystick plugs in so we're sticking with our old school gaming for the time being.

Microsoft, however, appears to have twigged the fact that Xbox is kind of a big deal with gamers, and smartphones are kind of a big deal with gamers. Thus, at one of the company's brainstorming session, some bright spark has clearly drawn a parallel and blue-sky-thought his way into CEO Satya Nadella's office.

We're choosing to assume that 15 would have been 'exclusive built-in copy of Half Life 3' because that's the way we roll.

Arbitrary

Xbox's great friends at Sony are probably getting a bit suspicious that the Xbox One Set top entertainment box is actually a games console in disguise, but while they cast puzzled glances at their erstwhile buddies in Redmond they can also surreptitiously pull out one of those weird party hooter things and toot up the news that 100 million people have now bought a PS4, PS3 or PS Vita.

We're not entirely sure why this is a particularly huge deal. If they included the PS2 they'd have hit the figure back in 1962, but we're all for slightly meaningless stat-driven triumphalism (did we mention that 100 million people have read Week in Gaming if you also count all of our phone reviews towards the total?).

You know what would have sucked PlayStation fans? 2GB of RAM - that would have sucked harder than Dyson's favourite product encountering the particularly luxurious deep-pile shag rug that WiG's normal writer keeps in his love parlour.

And your shiny hard-drive? Wave that goodbye if the accountants had won. And if the accountants had had their way what kind of gaming machine would they have had to spend their ludicrous bonuses on? Eh? Eh?

Samsung-star

There's this big Korean company you gamers might not have come across called 'Samsung' - who have apparently built up something of a head of steam in those tech backwaters 'television' and 'mobile phones' and 'everything else that isn't consoles'.

Samsung's VR concept

But, if you are excited by Oculus Rift, or Morpheus or wearing something that looks like divers goggles - then perhaps you should sit up and take notice, because Sammy's Gear VR mask is apparently close to a public showing.

We can't tell you if this render is accurate, but we can tell you that having those big trendy square spectacles is simply not cool any more - diver masks that completely block out your vision but magic you to another world are clearly the new black.

Want some more proof? Have a gander at Chris Smith's article talking about VR being the future of gaming. And probably life. Why augment reality when you can live in a reality where you don't need to eat*?

So. There we have it. 7 days of awesomeness, wrapped up into a tiny ball and lobbed carelessly into the trashcan of your mind. Next week - this guy will have recovered from Google Glass enabled lurgy. "Google Glass! Call my doctor!"